Your Employer Must Keep Your Time Records — Here's How to Use That

For federally regulated workers, the Canada Labour Standards Regulations, s. 24, set two distinct retention obligations.

• s. 24(1): the employer must keep the employment record — the file covering hiring and termination — for at least 36 months after the date of termination of employment.
• s. 24(2): for at least three years after the work is performed, the employer must keep, among other things, "the hours worked each day," the rate of wages ("clearly indicating whether it is on an hourly, weekly, monthly or other basis"), and the actual earnings, "indicating the amounts paid each pay day and the amounts paid as overtime pay."

Read s. 24(2) carefully: it is not just "total hours." It is hours worked each day, the rate, and the amounts paid as overtime. That is a complete blueprint of what you were owed and what you were paid — exactly the comparison a claim turns on.

Ontario's ESA, s. 15, is equally specific.

• s. 15(1), para 3.1: the employer must record "the dates and times that the employee worked."
• s. 15(4): even where an employee falls under an exemption that would otherwise excuse tracking hours, the employer must still record hours worked beyond 44 in a week — that is, the exact overtime hours that trigger premium pay.
• s. 15(5): these records must be retained for three years after the employee ceases to be employed.

So even for roles where hour-tracking is loosest, the law still demands a record of the overtime hours — the ones most likely to be underpaid.

Québec builds the duty into two connected instruments.

• Règlement N-1.1, r. 6, art. 1: the employer must keep a register showing, for each pay period, the hours worked per day, the weekly total, and the overtime hours paid or replaced by leave with the applicable premium.
• Art. 46 of the LNT: the pay statement must contain enough detail to let the employee verify how their wage was calculated — including the number of hours paid at the normal rate and the overtime hours paid or replaced by leave with the applicable premium.

Together these mean a Québec employee should always be able to reconstruct their pay from the documents the employer is required to provide. If you can't, that is a signal something is missing.

The obligations above are not just background — they are a checklist you can act on.

1. Request your records in writing. Ask specifically for the items the law names: daily hours, wage rate, overtime paid, and the retention period that applies to you (3 years / 36 months). A written request creates a paper trail and puts the duty front and centre.
2. Reconcile three documents. Line up (a) your own contemporaneous hours log, (b) the employer's official register or records, and (c) your pay stub. Where they disagree, you have found a discrepancy.
3. Treat gaps and contradictions as evidence. If the employer cannot produce the hour-by-hour records the law required — or if the register shows hours your pay stub never paid — that supports your claim. It does not automatically win it (Canadian law has no automatic reversal of the burden of proof), but it makes your own reconstruction more credible and the employer's position harder to defend.
4. Move before the retention clock runs out. Records only have to be kept for a defined period (3 years / 36 months). The longer you wait, the more likely the very evidence you need has lawfully been discarded.

Your employer is not the only party who was supposed to track your hours — by law, they were the primary one. The federal regime demands daily hours, the wage rate and overtime paid, held three years (records) or 36 months (the employment file). Ontario demands dates and times worked, plus every hour over 44, held three years. Québec demands a register of daily hours, weekly totals and overtime, mirrored on a pay statement detailed enough to verify. Request those records, reconcile them against your own log and your pay stub, and let any gap or contradiction do its work. The next step is learning to read the document you receive most often: your pay stub — see How to Read Your Canadian Pay Stub and Spot Missing Overtime.